


Add it up

by isitandwonder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:30:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isitandwonder/pseuds/isitandwonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock needs someone, a person to talk to, someone who'd care to love -- could it be John?<br/>The situation gets rough, and both start to panic; but it's not enough, it's just a habit. They'll hurt each other bad, but they won't mind, because they have been doing it all the time...<br/>Because broken people can get better if they really want to, or at least that's what they have to tell themselves if they are hoping to survive.<br/>Well, this is it...<br/>Rated mature, for there will be smut later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Add it up

Prologue

Kissing John Watson had possibly been the single most stupid idea in Sherlock's life, a life not lacking occurrences that would have had less brilliant - or mad - individuals pray for the earth to swallow them whole.

For instance, Sherlock had once given a performance as a Turkish belly dancer - a female Turkish belly dancer. Of course, it had been for a case, and, of course, he had been very convincing, at least until the crowd, consisting mostly of lads from Kilburn out on a stag night, had demanded to stuff complementary banknotes in his _badleh_. The resulting irritation would have caused a lesser man to make an undignified exit, but Sherlock had even tried to explain the cultural transformation this ancient oriental form of art had suffered by its transition to the modern west, pointing out that in the osmanic harems all dancers had traditionally been male eunuchs, until the future spouse had threatened to transform Sherlock into one himself (eunuch, not spouse) by chipping of his _"poofter's dick 'n bollocks"_. Speaking of irritation, the itching, blistering rash Sherlock developed afterwards, resulting from copper inlays in the false golden danglings of his costume, decorating his chest and lower abdomen for nearly a week, had been only slightly less humiliating.

This should have made it clear that Sherlock Holmes wasn't easily embarrassed. But the shocked look on John's face after their lips parted, his hands pressing defensively against Sherlock's shoulders, trying to keep him at bay, and his otherwise frozen stature, rooted to the spot by the sensation of Sherlock's mouth firmly on his with explicit and unmistakeable intent, eagerly seeking to lick its way inside, made Sherlock seriously doubt the wisdom of his decision.

\---------------------------------

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

Would he shamelessly have started showing off mere three minutes after this first initial question if he had known what would come of his connection to John Watson, invalided army doctor, war veteran, and adrenaline addicted badass?

Before meeting said doctor, Sherlock had valued his WORK (in capital letters) above anything. To excel at it, he employed all available resources of body and mind. And only excelling, being exceptional, out-rivalling everybody, outshining everyone, brought him the absolutely essential high, the short but blissful satisfaction he had come to crave more than anything else, certainly more than human relations.

So, at first, he was troubled processing what was happening to him in relation to John Watson. Sherlock noticed somewhat puzzled that he tried very hard to impress John from the start. From his first oscillating deduction in the lab at Bart's, referring rather bluntly to John's psychosomatic condition, by way of the mysteriously cryptic message send to Lestrade via John's phone, to the sly wink at leaving John with Stamford (he had actually _winked_ at John, for god's sake), the whole scene had been a performance, put on by Sherlock to blind the good doctor with his dazzling personality, and coax him into submissive cohabitation.

When the two had met at Baker Street the next day, Sherlock had lost no time in recruiting John to his task, feeling surprisingly disappointed at John's lack of enthusiasm and awe regarding Sherlock's line of WORK. So, just to make sure, Sherlock had spooled off another rather brilliant reasoning in the cab on their way to Brixton, finally, finally drawing the kind of admiration from John that his ingenious conclusions deserved.

This had set the mark. From now on, John had to be overwhelmed by Sherlock's cleverness on a nearly daily basis. Sherlock wanted to rock the very foundations of John's - up until now so very ordinary - life, to transcend him to a level of awareness worth of Sherlock's mental capability. The question why it was so important for Sherlock to effect John in this way did not cross his mind for the first few weeks. But then he began to wonder.

Sherlock remembered their first dinner, at Angelo's. Had John really tried to make a pass on him? He had immediately denied it, after Sherlock had called him out on it, but then, Sherlock had not been very sophisticated or delicate, and John had perhaps just backed off out of simple self-preservation. Or had it just been curiosity on his part, being interested in establishing the sexual preferences of the man he was to share his life and dwellings with? Whatever, Sherlock had told him off quite briskly, on a reflex, and just to be on the safe side, but ever since, he had wondered what might have been. Perhaps, this evening had triggered the earliest conscious speculations in the directions of _but what if...?_

At the end of their first night, John had shot a man for Sherlock, offering Jefferson Hope like a pagan sacrifice to proof his worthiness. The suspense of chatting to the serial killer, combined with the rush of endorphins the sudden onslaught on the cabbie had provided, had made Sherlock feel alive and burning with something he couldn't quite fathom: he was not simply grateful to John for saving his life, no; above that, he felt a strange and deep connection with this oh so ordinary man he had just met merely 36 hours before. Up until then, Sherlock Holmes had never felt anything remotely similar in regard to any other human being he had encountered, and that firstly astonished and than intrigued him.

He started to watch John closely, trying to establish what made him so special, set him apart from the rest of the otherwise utterly mundane population of London. It had made Sherlock angry when John had called himself just his colleague, after he had introduced him as his friend to Sebastian. If he had been a more emotionally experienced person, Sherlock would even have described his perception as ... vulnerability? Had he really felt hurt, his pride been injured? This was unheard of! What was John Watson doing to him?

His anger had arisen again as John had brought Sarah Sawyer around. Going from annoyed by her accompanying John to the Chinese circus, to impatient because of her coming back with them to Baker Street and asking stupid questions, Sherlock had just not been able to understand what John saw in this boring doctor. She was neither exceptionally clever nor unique in her habits. So why did John want to spend time with her, when he could be spending it with Sherlock instead? And why was that bothering Sherlock, why the urge to stir John away from her? Well, of course, she diverted John's attention from Sherlock, which could prove inconvenient in the future. But that did not answer why this cut that deep with the latter. Could that be - Sherlock shied disgustedly away from this line of thought - _sentiment_?

Eventually, he successfully alienated Sarah from John. There were, he discovered, only a limited number of romantic dates women liked to be interrupted on, even if these interruptions consisted of stimulating incidents like being kidnapped and threatened by Asian thugs, or explosions in the vicinity of Baker Street.

In the aftermath of which, Sherlock had tried to affect John by his rational, logic and detached approach in connection with the bombings and abductions staged by Moriarty. But, oddly enough, John had not fully appreciated Sherlock's utilitarian course of action, demanding instead that he show some compassion. Sherlock's sound argument that caring was not an advantage had actually seemed to frustrate John.

And Sherlock had wondered again.

But it took John Watson covered in Semtex, gripping Moriarty and telling Sherlock to run, to bring him around to admitting that John was more to him than his convenient gun wielder, more than a useful servant regarding pedestrian tasks such as shopping and cleaning, and even more than the much appreciated provider of astonishment toward Sherlock and his WORK, praising Sherlock for attitudes which previously had only gotten him abuse (at worst) or suspicion (at best).

\--------------------------------------------------

And so it happened, that, when they finally reached home after the doomed incident at the pool, escaping death once again by the skin of their teeth, Sherlock had stood in their kitchen and watched John preparing the universal English suppressant in the face of even the most hazardous calamity - tea - and had counted silently to ten while recapturing all the things his flatmate was and meant to him:

1.) John had never doubted Sherlock.

2.) John possessed a dark sense of humour, making Sherlock, who took his WORK dead serious, suddenly giggle even at crime scenes.

3.) John had never backed away from Sherlock, never once tried to distance himself from him, even when he had been infuriatingly obnoxious and grossly insulting.

4.) Neither had John ever attempted to change Sherlock. (He had sometimes pointed out that his behaviour lacked empathy, but had never actively intervened to alter Sherlock's personality.)

5.) Therefore, John seemed to accept Sherlock the way he was.

6.) Not only that, but he actually seemed to genuinely like Sherlock the way he was.

7.) That in turn genuinely surprised Sherlock, and that was something not many people were capable of.

8.) More surprisingly, this very night, John had been willing to sacrifice himself for his (admittedly superior, second to none, except perhaps one consulting criminal whose name Sherlock - at least at the moment - did not dare to speak) flatmate.

9.) This staggered Sherlock in a state of astonishment, a most peculiar experience to him - but not an unpleasant one.

10.) On the contrary, he felt a tingle down his spine, accompanied by a warmth spreading in his lower abdomen. Definitely interesting.

For the record, it should be stated here that refraining from giving in to certain impulses does not mean never to experience said impulses. And as Sherlock had been to university, he had experienced his fair share of fleshly impulses, and what happened if you gave into them, even if he had studied chemistry, where you did not always meet the most attractive partners, but therefore usually really grateful ones. His subject had provided Sherlock with a steady stream of nerdy boys, which had suited him fine, now and then chatting up one of their geeky sisters, just for practice.

So he obviously knew what to do. And he knew very well how to do it. Standing in his kitchen, watching John putting the kettle on, he just wondered what took him so long to reach this point, becoming suddenly aware of the right course of action.

But being slightly out of practice, perhaps he had jumped the gun a bit, rushing into action without carefully considering John's attitude toward romantic - or sexual - attachments. Otherwise, why was John shoving him back now while trying to twist his body away from Sherlock's, a look on his face wavering from subdued shock to open disgust.

"Sherlock, what the fuck...?" John spluttered, colour rising in his cheeks.

"John..." Sherlock knew exactly what his deep, velvety voice could do to people, so he breathed the name out longingly, while lowering his head and glancing up at John from hooded eyes through his long black lashes.

"Christ!" John was ruffling his short blond hair in despair. "Listen, I don't mind, you know, but ... well ... I'm absolutely not gay. Never have been. Never will. Got that?" He squirmed in an attempt to squeeze past Sherlock's lanky frame that trapped him pressed against their kitchen counter.

Sherlock kept staring at him, hands placed firmly at the work top on both sides of John's hips .

"OK, I have to make it plain, than: that means I won't snog my flatmate in our kitchen. Under no circumstances, whatsoever. Does this register with you?"

"God, John, don't be so pedestrian. I really don't care about your sexual preferences." Sherlock rolled his eyes at such inhibition.

"Well, you bloody should, don't you think, if you are attempting to seduce me." John had reached a level of annoyances that seemed to require shouting as an outlet for utter frustration.

"Why? What does it matter if you identify as gay or straight or pan or whatever. I don't mind. Let's just get off." Sherlock could give as good as take regarding the frustrated shouting, and in his case, the frustration was much more rectified, as John's stupid denial deprived him of highly anticipated carnal pleasures.

But instead of convincing John that his timidity was absolutely unnecessary and totally uncalled for, Sherlock's request - which, in its simplicity, should not have been so hard to understand and fulfil - was met with an incredulous frown, a huff, and a muttered "I can't believe this!", followed by a rough push, and then the door of the flat banged shut behind John, who was already on the street, hailing a cab, when Sherlock finally came around to acknowledge that he might have just made an enormous mistake.


End file.
